Underworld
by Xanatos Stones
Summary: After awakening from a fall, a young girl finds herself in a mysterious new land with only one memory. She must reach the king of the monsters and warn him of the humans' evil plan. Moments later, a robot possessing a human soul is released into the underground with the sole purpose of killing said king. Throw into this mix, a lazy, corny, skeleton & who knows how things will end.
_Chapter 1: Flowers… That Kill_

 _Flowers. Flowers?_ The softness of the flowerbed upon which she was stretched out was the first thing to register as the girl's consciousness began to return. What was going on? Where was she? Her head her, her mind unstable. She… couldn't remember, and trying hurt. Her head throbbed, and her entire body was sore, as if it hadn't moved in a long time. Lying there, her eyes still closed, she stretched out her arm, and the purple sweater she wore brushed up against something. Inquisitively, she reached out and touched it. _Skin._

The girl's blue eyes flew open, and she jerked her head to the left. A body, nearly identical to her own, lay sprawled out awkwardly. The skin was still slightly colored, implying that the death had been very recent. Letting out a scream, the girl scrambled backwards away from it. _What the heck was going on?_ She shot another quick look to make sure that it was indeed a corpse in front of her. _Yes, that girl was definitely dead, and it looked as if she had… fallen?_

 _Curious._ The girl looked up to see where the body could have come from. Far, far above, she could see a tiny prick of light. Her eyes darted around. Stone walls stretched above her in all directions save one, where a split through the walls led deeper into… wherever this was. Having no other direction to go, and wanting to get as far away from the body as possible, the girl turned and sprinted into the tunnel.

Around the next bend, the tunnel opened up into a massive cavern, hundreds of feet tall and even wider than that. Directly in front of her was another flowerbed. A sunflower stood in the middle of the flowerbed, towering over the other flowers. Beyond the flowerbed, loomed a crumbling fortress. It's massive size, and battlements, made it nonetheless quite intimidating. It really didn't look like a good place to go, and it was relatively dark to her left and right. Sighing, she sat down in the new flowerbed. _What was she supposed to now?_

"Howdy."

The voice came so suddenly, out of nowhere, that the girl let out a yipe and fell backwards onto the grass. She quickly scrambled to the feet, and dusted herself off, before glancing around. _Nobody._ "Wh-where are you?" She called out into the darkness.

"Hey, kid. Relax, ok? That was a big tumble you took just now, but don't worry. You're safe now. I'm down here, by the way." The girl looked down, and jumped backwards for the third time in the last ten minutes. At the current moment, absolutely nothing was making sense. The sunflower in the center of the garden had turned around, revealing that it had both eyes and a mouth. The mouth was smiling, and the eyes were looking directly at her.

"You… you're a flower!?" The girl exclaimed, her eyes widening.

A very slight smirk crossed the flower's face. "Wow. You are an observant one, aren't cha? Names Flowey, Flowey the Flower as you put it so perfectly a couple second ago. Pleasure to meet cha." Flowey paused for a second, and the girl felt like Flowey was attempting to read something off of her appearance. "You have no idea where you are, do ya? Here's a hint. The sky is far above you. Stones surround you. A sunflower is talking to you. Figured it out, yet?"

Realization dawned. "The Underworld," the girl whispered, eyes filling with wonder as she looked around. And the moment she said the words, a few of her lost memories began to come together. "I'm… I'm supposed to talk to your leader. Do you know where he is? Could you take me to him?"

"What?" Flowey said, clearly taken aback by her last statement. "But… you're a human. If he saw you, he'd kill you, before you even had a chance to open your mouth!" He paused. "You could always talk to the prince though. Yes, Prince Asriel would help you. If he got you a moment with the king, I'm sure Asgore would listen to whatever you have to say."

"Prince Asriel," The girl repeated the name with a smile, nodding her head. "Ok, thank you very much." She turned towards the fortress, paused, and turned back to Flowey. "You… uh… wouldn't happen to know where I could find this Prince Asriel, would you?"

A genuine smile crossed Flowey's face. "Actually, I know exactly where he is, and it isn't very far away either. Would you like me to take you to him right now?"

The girl breathed a sigh of relief. "Yes, please, and thank you. I can't even begin to tell you how much that means to me." She blinked as she realized she'd forgotten to follow proper etiquette. "By the way, my name's Chara. It's a pleasure to meet you, Flowey."

Flowey stiffened, if such a thing can be said of a flower, but only for a brief second. "Actually," he said, "before I take you anywhere, I should probably teach you about Love."

Chara's cheeks turned pink for a second, before stammering out, "Wh…wh…what?"

"Love," Flowey replied simply, "Or… well… some of us monsters just call it LV. Begin by looking at your chest."

Completely confused, Chara looked down, and would have jumped back if it was at all possible to jump back from yourself. A heart, the kind that you would send to somebody on Valentine's Day, glowed red in the middle of her chest. "What in the world is that!?"

"Your soul," Flowey replied simply. "Here in the Underworld, for whatever reason, your soul is visible. And that is where the concept that we call Love comes in. You see, Chara…" _Had he just winced? Why in the world would Flowey wince after saying her name?_ "Your soul is currently very weak, and if you want to meet with Asgore, you are going to need a stronger one. The more Love you collect, the stronger your soul becomes, and the more likely Asgore will put any stock in what you say."

"So, this Love, how do I collect it?" Chara asked curiously.

"Simple," Flowey said, beaming. "For the moment, I'll share of mine with you. Down here, love is shared through little white things I like to call Friendliness Pellets."

As Flowey spoke, the world around them began to fade, as did the color. Now, all that was around them was black, yet Flowey and Chara stood out perfectly. The oddest thing about this, however, was the fact that it wasn't dark. Although no conceivable light source could be found, it was perfectly lit. "Where… where are we?" Chara whispere, apprehensively.

"Relax," Flowey said calmly. "This is a side-dimension of sorts. It's the only place where Love can be exchanged. That's all."

"Ok," Chara said, nodding her head. _This… probably wasn't the weirdest thing she'd seen that day._ "So… these Friendliness Pellets?"

Flowey began to glow, and released small blasts of white in her general direction. "Jump around. Try to collect as many of them as you can."

Chara nodded, leapt through the air, collided with one and was hurled backwards. She slammed against what must have been ground, and skidded a few foot. Laying there, bruised, she noticed her soul blinking much less brightly, and that she didn't even have the strength to stand back up.

"FOOL!" The voice was a dark, distorted version of the one she'd heard just a couple of seconds ago. Peering up, Chara noticed that Flowey's friendly smile had changed to a gloating, evil one. The pupils of the eyes were gone, and if it was possible for a flower to look demonic, Flowey most certainly did. "You pathetic, worthless idiot. In this world, my world, there is only one rule. Kill or Be Killed. Nobody in their right mind would pass up an opportunity like this. An ignorant fool, easy Love points. That's right. Love is actually collected by ripping the souls out of other beings."

A circle of 'Friendliness Pellets' appeared around Chara, blocking escape in all directions. "You pathetic little girl, it's time to die." As the pellets closed in, the flower began to laugh maniacally. Chara closed her eyes, bracing for impact. As if out of nowhere, she suddenly felt rejuvenated. Opening her eyes, she noticed that the pellets were gone. And that Flowey looked very upset.

The next moment, a blast of fire sent Flowey flying into the black, and he was gone. There had barely been enough time to register the surprise in his face. _This had clearly not been part of his plan._ The next moment, a strange goat woman stepped out of the black. She wore what appeared to be some sort of monk robe, with a symbol of what Chara took to be an angel and three fireballs. She stood on two legs, and where she should have had hooves, she instead had hands and feet. There was something… motherly… about her.

Chara didn't move, watching the mysterious figure while keeping herself flat to the ground. If she'd learned one thing from the last encounter, it was that these monsters were quite cunning. _Just because this creature looked friendly meant nothing, and just because she had defeated Flowey did not mean that she was a friend._

"What a terrible creature," the goat woman said, as Chara heard the sound of the footsteps coming towards her, "torturing such a poor, innocent girl." As the goat knelt next to her, Chara cringed. Her mind was racing way too fast to form any comprehendible thoughts. The question _Am I about to die?_ , however, circled through the chaos several times.

"Don't be a afraid, Child. I'm not here to harm you…"

"Really?" Chara whispered, suspiciously, finding her voice at last, "'cause that's exactly what that psychopath said to me just a couple of seconds ago. Who are you?"

"Toriel," the goat replied, and her voice was soothing. "I take care of the ruins that you see in front of you." Chara blinked and looked up for the first time. The strange death-dimension they'd been in a couple of seconds ago had indeed faded away, and the goat woman was motioning towards the intimidating fortress. The tone of voice, and the disappearance of the death zone, caused Chara's suspicions to abate a bit.

"One of my responsibilities is to check this area every day in case anybody has fallen down. Some monsters… well… don't take kindly to humans." She glanced in the direction of the flower garden, the center of which was now empty. "You are the first one I've seen in quite a while though. Seems it was a good thing I kept up the habit despite the apparent pointlessness, doesn't it?" She chuckled good-naturedly.

Toriel reached down and took Chara's hand, helping her to her feet. There was a warmth to her hand that Chara instantly knew she hadn't felt in a very long time. The woman really did feel motherly. Standing next to Toriel, Chara found that she felt safe for the first time since waking up. "Come on," Toriel said, motioning towards the fortress. "I'll lead you through."

As she began to walk, Chara found herself following. The fear that had been overrunning her just a few minutes before had completely subsided now. _No matter what happened, she knew she was safe while Toriel was with her._ As the gate crept open, Chara glanced backwards towards the empty area where Flowey had been standing. She felt in her gut that this wasn't the last time she would see that maniac.


End file.
